The Unseen

11

August 4th, 1911

Dearest Amelia,

How I wish you were still here, to help and give me strength. This house is no longer a comfortable place. I don’t quite know where to start. Albert. Albert is not himself. He is strange and distant and so caught up in his desire to see the wretched elementals again that he has no space left in heart nor mind for me, or the parish, or his duties or anything. He eats little, and will no longer touch meat of any kind, and I have not seen him sleep in days. He has taken to lingering outside the inns and public houses of the district, preaching to passers-by about their many sins. Amy! I am quite distraught about it all! And I can trace only one possible cause of these unsettling changes – Mr Robin Durrant. Who is still lodging with us, after all these many weeks, though he contributes nothing to the running of the household. When I mentioned this to Bertie he seemed almost to find it funny. To find me funny. He describes Mr Durrant as ‘our esteemed guest’, and believe me – he could not possibly hold the man in higher esteem. Whatever Mr Durrant suggests, Albert agrees to. It is that simple. It’s as though my dear husband has quite lost his own mind!

Cat, our maid, is also beside herself. Albert saw her in one of the pubs in Thatcham, and declared that she must be dismissed for this misdemeanour. I protested, and spoke up for her, as I have come to like and value her; but it was only when Robin Durrant spoke up that she was allowed to stay. Albert insists that she be kept locked in her room at night, which she has been; but I understand that since her incarceration in London, confinement is something she really cannot abide, and she is most terribly upset every time the door closes. I think it’s a cruel and unnecessary thing to do, but Albert insists, and this time Robin chooses not to argue with him. Perhaps it amuses him to hear her in distress. Oh! I know I am writing terrible things about him, but suddenly I find that I do not trust him, and that I do not like him, and that I do not want him here!

Cat has a sweetheart, in town. That was why she was wont to go out in the evenings – to meet up with him. I thought when she first hinted at it that it was Robin Durrant with whom she was keeping trysts. I have seen them together, outside in the courtyard. Talking in a most familiar way. But he insists that he knows nothing about it, and actually I can’t think that Cat would be interested in him. Perhaps this is why I feel so much sympathy towards her, for if she loves this man as I love Bertie, then keeping her away against her will is even more inhumane of us. I suggested that she write him a note to explain her staying away for the time being, but she tells me that he cannot read. Poor, simple soul he must be. I have made sure Albert hears nothing about any of this. In his present mood I think he would march them straight to church and wed them, even if the most tenderness they had shared were a kiss, or a clasping of hands. It breaks my heart a little to think I am party to their being kept apart. For that is how I feel too – cut off from Albert, separated. I miss him, Amy!

I shan’t commit the details to paper, but a week or so ago, on the last occasion that Albert came up to our bed at night, something occurred which demonstrated to me just how the thing that is supposed to happen between us, as man and wife, should go. I understand, you will doubtless be relieved to hear, after all this time. But no sooner had I made this discovery than I found myself even further from my husband than I have ever been. He recoiled from me, Amelia. From the very touch of my hands. There. What possible direction can I go in from here? Because I know, though I can’t explain exactly how, that if there is to be any improvement between Albert and me from here on out, then it cannot happen while Robin Durrant remains in our lives, and under our roof. When he is here, it’s as though Albert is not. Or perhaps, I am not. Am I making sense?

Well. Perhaps you have read about our elementals in the paper? I understand that a couple of the national papers are printing the story now, after the storm of correspondence that followed the publication of the pictures in our local paper. It seems a great many people share your reaction to the photographs, Amy. Mr Durrant has yet to receive official support from the Theosophical Society, which annoys him greatly. He is petitioning them to send somebody to witness another picture being developed, to prove that the images are real. How do I know all this? By listening at doors, dear sister. Yes, in my own home! Albert’s pamphlet fares less well. He has yet to find a book shop to take on a stock of it, and has run an advertisement in the paper instead. He sends out two or three a day by mail order, for three pence apiece.

I wish you were here, with all my heart; and am also glad that you are not – for I would not wish the atmosphere of this house upon another living soul right now, let alone one as dear as you. But how about you? And your own troubles with Archie? I do so hope you have managed to come back to some state of accord, and that your house is a happier one than mine. I wish I had some advice to give you, but I am fearfully ignorant. I can’t think what advice you will have for me, mine being such an unusual and unwelcome set of circumstances. But if you do have any, please dearest sister, write it soon and send it to me. I am not sure what to do, what not to do, or how much longer I can stand it all.

With all my love,

Hester

1911

When the key turns in the lock, there comes such a roaring in Cat’s ears that she fears her head might explode. It doesn’t matter that Mrs Bell’s face is heavy with anxiety and displeasure as she does it. It does not matter that through the window the moon still rises, and sets the glass ablaze with silver light. It does not matter that come morning she will be let out again. None of it matters but that she is a prisoner again, and powerless, and hasn’t the freedom to come or go as she may. She is like The Gentleman’s canary, which tipped its head at him and would not sing. Silence was its last weapon, the last thing of its own that it had control over. Cat’s voice is her last thing. In fear, in rage, she shouts at the door, shouts her throat raw; shouts to be louder than the thumping inside her head. She will not rest, and neither will the household. She hammers her fists against the wood; stamps her feet; curses and swears and sobs. She thinks she is loud, too loud for anybody to ignore. But when at last she slumps, exhausted, to the floor, she can hear Sophie Bell’s snores, sawing gently from two doors down the hall.

So she sits, when she’s too tired to fight any more. Sits with her back to the door and the rough wooden floorboards snagging the skin on the backs of her legs. Her throat is burning, her skull wrapped around with tight bands of tension and pain. She tries to think of George, of the way she feels when she is with him. The life he seems to breathe; the soul of her, drawn patiently from the hard kernel inside by his smile and the touch and the taste of him. She tries to think of her mother – her mother as she was, before the consumption; or Tess on the first afternoon they sneaked out to a public meeting, with her delight painting her face like a rainbow. But the thoughts won’t stay to comfort her. George slips away into silhouette, into shadow, as if distant in her memory. She is left with his outline only, as if he sat with the sun always behind him, and her eyes could not cope with the light. Sickness and death take her mother; gaol, and now the workhouse, take Tess. Cat is back in her cell, with chill, clammy walls and the stink of piss and shit from the pail in the corner; with lice scurrying over her scalp, driving her wild with itching. They were in the bedding. In the ticking of the mattress, the seams and stitching of the meagre blankets. She did not think to check – had never before been anywhere where lice lay in wait like that; waxy grey speckles to swarm the unwary. The stone walls were damp; thick mildew crawled up them, shading the mortar black.

The working-class girls had none of the soft treatment of their middle- and upper-class comrades. No privileges, no luxuries. They were not allowed to write letters, or wear their own clothes. They were allowed out of the cell block for one hour a day, to shuffle around a cramped cobbled yard. Cat and Tess walked together, huddled close, their fingers meshed. Cat tried to make Tess laugh by sharing gossip and making up wild stories about the wardresses, and the other prisoners, and the vast feasts of cake they would eat upon their release. One wardress was the most feared by all the women. She was built like a snake, thin and wiry. All sinew and bone; no hint of a curve to soften her hips or bust. Her face was hard. She had dark hair which she pinned back severely; cold blue eyes; a cruel, lipless mouth turned up at the corners in an expression that had nothing to do with good humour; and a sharp, pointed nose. Cat dubbed her The Crow for this reason, and made up mocking rhymes about her in the long hours she was alone, to sing to Tess as they walked around the yard. Tess didn’t laugh, but she managed to smile. Her eyes were always full of tears, swollen and pink.

The wardresses slapped them for insubordination – a charge that encompassed walking too slowly, or too fast, coughing too much, or swearing, blaspheming, whistling, singing, talking back. By the second morning of her three-month sentence, Cat, who had never been struck in her life before, had a split lip, and a wobbly tooth behind it. Word passed around quickly that they had to go on strike against this treatment. This was what they did – suffragettes. They ought to have been classed as political prisoners, not common criminals. They ought to have been in better accommodation, with better food and treatment, and the privileges due to them. They were told all this by the WSPU before they were sentenced. Cat knew it as she passed through the massive stone gates of Holloway, crenellated like a fairy-tale castle, but with no happy endings inside. They had to demand these things, and they had to refuse to eat until they got them or were allowed to go free. Cat didn’t mind the closed-in space. Not at first. It did not bother her, the first night that the door was locked. She hadn’t known then what it meant. She had not tested the boundaries of her new world, and found out how close they were, how much they could hurt.

The first day without food was a blessing. The bread was always hard and stale, the soup little more than the water in which the wardresses had cooked their vegetables. Thin and bad-smelling. Cat was used to the good food of Broughton Street, and before that the home cooking of her mother. She could hardly touch this stuff without retching. Her stomach soon felt hot, and knotted itself in protest, but she was more than able to ignore it. The food she did not eat was left to go foul. The wardresses slapped her for her rebellion; The Crow twisted her arm up behind her back and yanked her around her cell by her hair. She bore it all, because they couldn’t force her to eat. They couldn’t win. Five days this went on, and by the sixth she couldn’t get up from the mattress. The cells all around her were quiet too, since all the suffragettes were housed together, and she lay still and listened to that silence. It was a companionable silence, and spoke of their shared weakness – the listlessness of their bodies, the strength and determination of their minds. The silence didn’t last beyond the end of the sixth day. New sounds came to fill it.

The squeal of trolley wheels. Multiple footsteps, moving with purpose. The rattle of keys, of metal equipment of some kind. Cat raised her head from her rancid mattress at the unfamiliar noises. She thought about getting up, and pressing her face sideways to the tiny grille in the door, to see if she could see what was coming. Needles of unease pricked at her skin, and she couldn’t say why. Then more sounds started, and she knew her instincts were right. Shrieks, scuffles. The thump of furniture, knocked against the wall, the clank of metal again, the wardresses swearing, and male voices too. Two of them, muttering in low tones, as though through gritted teeth. The shrieks became screams, rose higher in panic, and then were stifled, choked off; replaced by coughing, retching. Hideous animal sounds like none Cat had ever heard a person make before. And when the source of the noises exited that cell, they left silence behind within it. A terrible, stunned, weighty silence. As the trolley wheels came towards her door, Cat’s heart pounded hard enough to break through her ribs.

She was next. Three wardresses, their hair in disarray, scratches on their arms and cheeks. Their faces grim as death. The Crow was one of them. The two men she had heard were wearing white coats like doctors, splattered and smeared with some substance. Beige smears, with flecks of red. The five of them brought with them a stink of sweat and fear. Slowly, Cat sat up. Her head spun wildly, a shock of dizziness that made it hard to think, hard to act. ‘Now, you give us any trouble and you’ll only make it harder on yourself. You hear?’ The Crow told her. The woman who, several days ago, had smiled as she split Cat’s lip with a sharp, back-handed slap. ‘Get away from me,’ Cat said. She tried to stand, but her legs felt boneless. She grasped the mattress for support, tried to push herself up once more. ‘It’s for your own good, young lady,’ one of the men said. ‘Let’s keep her on the bed, then,’ a wardress said. Cat shouted out, shouted: ‘No!’ But they were on her in an instant, two of the women holding her down by her arms, one of the men coming to hold her head. She bucked her body as hard as she could – which was not very hard – tried to twist out of their grasp. Her joints popped, skin bruised where they held her. The second man filled a tin cup from the trolley and passed it to The Crow. She put her knee on Cat’s chest, and the man lifted her head up, and the cup was pushed into her mouth. She smelt the sickly, milky smell of gruel and clamped her teeth together as hard as she could, wouldn’t yield. The wardress pushed the cup ever harder, scraping it along Cat’s teeth until the metal rim cut her gums, and she felt blood wetting her lips. But she did not yield. A tiny bit of gruel found its way into her mouth, and as soon as the woman was off her chest she spat it violently at her. Bright red swirls in the milky mess. ‘Christ! You’re a bloody idiot,’ The Crow told her.

Cat panted, gasped for breath. She strained every muscle, cursed them with every foul word she had ever heard coming from the mouth of a street hawker. The man at her head glanced at the man by the trolley. They nodded to one another. Her head was let go momentarily, but then The Crow took over, gripping her skull hard, pressing her thumbs cruelly into the pressure points at Cat’s temples. She screamed. When she opened her eyes, the men were upon her: one held a thin rubber tube, the other attached a funnel to the far end of it. Cat didn’t understand. She squeezed her teeth together again, thought that in this way she would beat them. But the tube was pushed into her nose. Into one nostril, uncomfortable at first, alien, and then excruciating. Like a knife stabbing behind her eye. She screamed, her mouth wide open at last, surrendering, but they stuck to their course. The tube was pushed in ever deeper. She felt it at the back of her throat and she gagged, her mouth filling with acid. She couldn’t breathe, her eyes bulged with panic as she choked, coughed, gasped little snatches of precious air. ‘That’s it. Ready,’ the man manoeuvring the tube announced curtly. His colleague poured the gruel into the funnel. For five minutes, which felt like a lifetime to Cat, he poured, watched the stuff trickle down the tube, poured again. When the tube came out at last it left a sticky wet dribble of milky slime in her throat, which trickled into her lungs. Her nose bled profusely as the tube slithered out, and her mouth tasted of blood and bile. They left her on her side, filthy and coughing. Deep, ragged coughs to clear the muck from her lungs. The pain in her head and chest was astonishing. She coughed for hours. She coughed for weeks and weeks. ‘Same again at teatime then, petal?’ The Crow said, sweetly. ‘That’s enough,’ one of the men snapped sternly. ‘There’s an anti-emetic in the mixture, but check on her in half an hour. If she has vomited at all, let me know and we will repeat the procedure.’ Cat lay in misery, in outrage and pain; every bit as violated as if she’d been raped. Same again at teatime.

‘Cat?’ There’s a gentle knock at the door, rousing her from the waking nightmares that beset her. ‘Cat, are you awake?’ It’s Hester’s voice, soft and quiet. Cat blinks, looks around her, finds it is still dark. She has no idea what the hour might be.

‘Yes, madam,’ she says, and then clears her throat. It feels raw and rough, as though the men with their tube really have been back to see her.

‘May I come in?’ Hester asks, and Cat has no idea how to answer her. Then there’s a rattling, a joyful little grating sound, and the door is open. Cat’s legs have gone to sleep. She struggles to her knees, turns her body, grips the edge of the door and feels the push of air through the gap. Light blooms behind her closed eyelids. She can’t tell if it’s Hester Canning’s little candle lamp, or relief, joy, liberation. ‘Oh, Cat! Your poor hands!’ Hester says, setting the candle on the dresser and helping Cat to stand. The skin across her knuckles is tattered and bloody.

‘Please. Please don’t lock me in again,’ Cat says. She’s not sure how many nights it has been, since the first time. Perhaps only two or three; perhaps more.

Hester’s eyes are full of pity. ‘Nobody even knows I’ve got this key. It opens every door in the house,’ she says, holding it loosely in her palm. ‘Come – come and sit on the bed. I’ll wash your hands for you. Oh, you have so many splinters!’

‘I can do it, madam. There’s no need,’ Cat says, flatly. She won’t let Hester make amends for this. Won’t let her forgive herself. There’s an awkward silence. Hester wraps her dressing gown more tightly around her, tucks the ends of the belt away neatly, nervously.

‘Was it so very awful? In gaol, I mean?’ Hester asks. Cat stares at her, wonders how to explain.

‘It was,’ is all she says in the end, the words little more than a croak.

‘Cat, I have always wondered… what was your crime? Why did they imprison you?’ Hester asks. As if here, in the dark, here in her servant’s room, she is no longer in her real world. She can ask things she would never normally ask, because the rules are not the same. Cat smiles a bleak little smile.

‘Everybody wants to know,’ she says. ‘Two months I was locked away, and my friend Tess and others with me. And for what? Obstruction.’

‘Obstruction?’

‘That was the charge. We had intent to cause a breach of the peace as well, they said. I had half a brick in my pocket, but that was for later. I hadn’t thrown anything at the time of my arrest, but they found it in my pocket, and they knew what it was for. And I would have done it.’ She tips her chin up defiantly. ‘Through the window of the milliner’s shop on West Street, that was my intention. It had the most lovely, huge plate-glass window; all the fine feathery hats inside on fake ladies’ heads. Hats the likes of Tess and I would never have cause to wear. I wanted to smash it. I would have done it!’

‘Hush, Cat! We mustn’t be heard,’ Hester whispers. ‘But you didn’t throw it?’

‘I didn’t get the chance. Six o’clock, that was meant to be when we would all split up, go to our various target areas and wait. When Big Ben struck the half hour, we would attack. But first, in the afternoon, we went to a Liberal Party meeting. We had placards to hold, and we were to shout slogans as loudly as we could, so that everybody who’d gone to hear the speakers inside would hear us too, since we weren’t allowed in to ask our questions, or make our demands. There were twelve of us, all the active duty girls from our branch of the WSPU. And Tess. Tess, my friend. She didn’t want to be on active duty, but I made her. I made her.’ Cat pauses, takes a long, shuddering breath and shuts her eyes. It’s unbearable to think of it. ‘We had strict instructions. There’s no law against doing what we were doing, as long as you stay in the street. If you step onto the pavement, they can call it obstruction, and cart you away. Standing in the street to shout a slogan is no crime. Standing on an empty pavement not a yard away to shout a slogan is a crime. How fair and reasonable the law is! So the policemen who turned up, they began to herd us. I didn’t realise at first what was happening. The officers linked arms and moved towards us, just ever so slowly. A half a step at a time for twenty minutes or more. Until we had no choice but to fall under their feet, climb onto each other’s shoulders or step up onto the pavement. So we did the latter, and we were arrested. Each last one of us.’

‘You were gaoled for months for that?’ Hester says, incredulously.

‘See now what a violent miscreant you have in your employ?’ Cat asks, bitterly.

Hester stares at her with wide eyes, robbed of words. In the end, she looks away, gets up and goes to the window, though there is nothing to see outside it but a solid black sky.

‘I scarce know what is right or fair any more, Cat. But that you should be gaoled for that small crime is not right. Not right at all,’ she says, unhappily.

‘We were beaten in gaol, madam. Beaten and… handed out worse treatment than I know how to describe to you! And now… and now I am a prisoner again! Do you see? Can you understand – I can’t bear it!’

‘Yes, I see! Quiet, Cat! Here – take this.’ She holds out the skeleton key to Cat, who stares at it incredulously. ‘Take it. You can unlock the door once Mrs Bell has locked it and gone. She takes the key from the lock when she goes, I have checked.’ Cat snatches the key, holds it tightly in her fist as if Hester might try to take it back again. A cold, iron lifeline, a talisman even more powerful than her Holloway medal. ‘But you must swear, Cat, you must promise me you will not go out of your room at night. Please – swear it! If you do, if Albert finds out that I have given you this key… Please, swear to me,’ Hester begs, crouching down in front of Cat and forcing her to meet her eyes.

‘I swear it.’ The words drag themselves from Cat, reluctantly. ‘But, I must get word to… to George. To my man. We were arguing, before. He might think I keep away because, because I don’t want him any more.’ To Cat’s bewilderment, Hester’s eyes fill up with tears; her lips tremble slightly and she presses them together.

‘Do you love him?’ Hester asks. So alien, it seems to Cat, to speak so freely with the vicar’s wife. But the night is dark and the room is a cell, and Hester Canning has offered her reprieve.

‘With body and soul, madam. With all of me,’ she answers; and Hester drops her head, a tear falling with a minute splash onto her clasped hands. For a long time Hester is quiet, breathing shallowly, and seems to fight for control of herself. Then she looks up again.

‘I will send you on some errand, tomorrow afternoon. Some errand in Thatcham. You may seek him then. But promise me – not in the night time. Not when your freedom might be noticed.’

‘I promise you,’ Cat says, and is surprised to find that she means it.

‘Well then. Hide the key, and keep it carefully! Turn the lock again in the morning before Mrs Bell comes to let you out. It wasn’t right to lock you in, Cat. I never thought it was right. But lately I seem to be mistress of this house no longer. There are two masters instead,’ Hester says forlornly, getting to her feet and picking up her candle once more. In the warmth of its glow, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders, eyes wide and glistening, the vicar’s wife is quite lovely.

‘Only one master, as I see it,’ Cat says darkly. ‘Can’t you be rid of him?’ Since they are speaking openly, Cat will have her say.

Hester blinks, startled. ‘I have tried to suggest that it’s time he went home…’

‘As far as I can tell, and as Mrs Bell’s gossip informs me, the man has no other home. And not much money to his name, either. His father keeps him on a very tight stipend. He is expected to make his own fortune,’ Cat says carefully. She watches Hester Canning, sees her digest this unwelcome information.

‘No home? He doesn’t even keep rooms somewhere?’

‘No, madam. It will be hard to shift him, I think, while the vicar makes him so very welcome.’

Hester nods her head, resignedly. ‘You understand a great deal, Cat Morley.’

‘Nobody knows a household and its occupants like its servants, madam. It’s inevitable.’

‘And what else do you know about Mr Durrant?’

‘Only this: do not trust him. He is a liar. If you can find some way to move him on, then do it,’ Cat says, gravely.

Hester stares at her, alarmed, then nods once and turns to go. ‘In the morning,’ she says, from the threshold of the room, ‘it must be as though none of this has passed between us.’ Her face betrays some discomfort.

‘Of course,’ Cat says, quite unperturbed. With Hester gone and the door open, she lies down on the bed and sleeps for the first time since it was locked.

The following day is one of simmering heat. In the kitchen, Cat and Mrs Bell make jam from the overflowing baskets of raspberries and loganberries that the gardener, Blighe, keeps bringing to the kitchen. The fat housekeeper is at the stove, stirring and stirring, making sure all the sugar in the vast copper pan has dissolved. Cat scalds the glass jars, boiling kettle after kettle of water to sterilise them before filling. Both work with sweat running down their faces and backs, between their breasts, into the folds of their clothes. Their cheeks are as red as the bubbling fruit pulp, their eyes flat with a kind of dull, resigned anger; ill-defined, aimed half at the heat of the day, half at the blameless raspberries. The room is sweet and heady with the scented steam. It clings to their hair and their faces and hands. Cat burns herself for a third time, hisses at the pain and plunges her hand into the bucket of cold water where the milk is kept. Mrs Bell hasn’t the energy left to reprimand her, or urge more care.

Once the jam has been left to sit for a quarter hour so the fruit will settle evenly, there are more burns as it’s poured. Splashes, piping hot flecks find bare wrists; dribbling overflows must be wiped away, the hot jars braced with wincing fingertips.

‘Dear God, if only that was the end of it! In a week the blackcurrants will start coming in,’ Mrs Bell sighs, putting her hand to her mouth and sucking where a blister is forming.

‘I’ve got to get out of here,’ Cat says, leaning her elbows on the sticky table top and bending forwards to stretch her back. ‘It’s suffocating me.’

‘It’s hotter than hell, I’ll grant you,’ Mrs Bell agrees. All day Cat has looked to the doorway, looked to the stairs, looked to Hester as she put the lunch dishes on the sideboard; waiting to have her errand, her means of escaping to find George. All day it has not come, and the wait has chafed her more as each minute ticked past. She takes the tea tray up at four, with a bowl of the fresh jam and a plate of scones. Her legs feel like lead as she climbs the stairs; her movements are wooden. No amount of water she drinks seems to quench her thirst. In the drawing room, the vicar and his wife sit with Robin Durrant, listening as he reads from a letter. Hester Canning’s face is flat and shiny, her hair a frizzy mess around her forehead. She seems lost in thought, and does not notice Cat, however hard Cat tries to catch the woman’s eye. The vicar can’t seem to keep his eyes still. They flit from Robin’s face to his hands to the letter he holds, and when Cat draws near he shuts his eyes and turns his head away, shuddering slightly, as though the smell of her offends him.

Gritting her teeth in fury, Cat puts the tray down with exaggerated care, and transfers the tea things to the table as slowly as she may without it appearing deliberate.

‘It is a source of tremendous satisfaction to us both that you have at l- that you have begun to make such a name for yourself as an authority in your chosen field. You are to be congratulated in the advances you have made of late. I look forward to our next meeting, and to a further discussion of both the nature and implications of your discoveries, since the newspapers’ reporting of it, which we follow most keenly, has been somewhat stingy with the facts of it all, and over-exuberant with either excitement or derision. I am sure that your continued diligence and endeavour in the field will only bring you greater prospects and wider renown. Yours etc…’ Robin Durrant lets the letter drop into his lap and smiles widely at the Cannings. ‘There! What a wonderful letter to receive from one’s father!’ he exclaims. ‘I know for a fact that the old man can’t for the life of him grasp the esoteric theories of theosophy, and yet he offers me his support and, I think, begins to respect the fact that in this field at least, my understanding outstrips his. And that of my brothers,’ the theosophist says, his voice vibrant with excitement, smiling with achievement. When neither of the Cannings replies to him, it clearly annoys him. He prods them as one would a listless pet, Cat thinks, requiring it to play. ‘What say you, Albert? Hester? Don’t you think it wonderful that a man as staid and traditional in his beliefs as my father can be persuaded to open his mind to this new reality?’

‘Oh, yes. Robin. You are to be congratulated, indeed,’ Albert obliges him, still keeping his face averted from Cat, and swallowing convulsively after he speaks. Beneath the sunburn that bridges his nose and cheeks, his face is an ashen grey. He looks unwell. No more than he deserves, Cat fumes inwardly. Hester seems about to speak, but clears her throat instead, and fumbles with the handle of her fan until the theosophist’s gaze returns to her husband.

‘Will that be all, madam?’ Cat asks pointedly, catching Hester’s eye and filling her face with significance.

‘Oh, yes, thank you, Cat,’ Hester replies, distantly. Cat glances at Robin, glares balefully at the flawless, self-satisfied smile on his face, and then leaves the room.

‘Damn and blast the woman!’ Cat swears, as she returns to the kitchen and pours herself a cup of water.

‘What now?’ asks Mrs Bell. She is writing out labels for the jam, crouched as close to the pen as she may, her face screwed up with the effort of concentration. Her writing is as small and cramped as she is large and flowing.

‘Let your pen move as freely as your thoughts,’ Cat says, peering over her shoulder. ‘Let the ink flow like a slow river.’ Mrs Bell shoots her a black look, and Cat retreats. ‘That’s how I was drilled, when I was learning to write.’ She shrugs.

‘Well, I’m not learning. I’m plenty good enough at it,’ Sophie Bell grumbles.

‘Sophie… I have to go out,’ Cat says suddenly.

‘You what?’ She does not look up from her labelling.

‘I have to go out. Please – only for an hour. I just have to get some fresh air, and be out of this house for a little while. I’ll be back in time to clear up the tea things, I promise…’

‘Oh, promises, promises. You’ll be off to see George Hobson, I know, and not back until you’ve made your bed with him,’ the housekeeper says. Now she looks up, to find Cat’s jaw gone slack with surprise, and her mouth robbed of words to protest. Sophie Bell smiles, not unkindly. ‘You of all people ought to know there’s little goes on around this parish that I don’t know about, Cat Morley. You’ve been seen with him enough times, by enough people.’

‘And I suppose you condemn me for it?’

Mrs Bell frowns a little, turns back to her pen but does not write. ‘There’s scant enough fun to be had in a servant’s life. I’m not so old and sour, as you called me, to begrudge a youngster getting out and about a bit. George Hobson’s an honest enough sort, rough as he is,’ she mutters.

‘Sophie Bell… of all the people I would not have placed on my side in all this…’ Cat shakes her head in wonderment.

‘Shows what you know, don’t it?’

‘So, then – please. I need to go and see him, just for a while. I just need to ask him something, that’s all. And I can’t send a note because he can’t read. Please. If I’m missed, tell them I came over all faint and went to lie down for half an hour… I’ll come straight back again, I promise.’

‘I don’t know… it’s one thing for you to put your own job at stake, quite another thing to start doing it to mine, isn’t it?’

‘Lie, then. Tell them I slipped out without a word, and you were none the wiser. When I get back… when I get back I shall tell you a secret,’ Cat says, teasingly. Mrs Bell looks up, studies her for a moment and then chuckles.

‘Whatever it is, I’ll bet you I know it already. Go on, then – and be quick!’

The sun is like hot metal in the sky, fierce and heavy. Cat goes via the front gate, not caring if she is seen. She walks quickly, breaks into a jog from time to time. In her pocket is the stub of a pencil and a scrap of paper – an old laundry receipt. Though she can’t write George a note, if he is not aboard his boat, Cat will leave some mark, leave some symbol to show she came to look for him. She thinks of the very thing, and smiles. A black cat. That’s what she’ll draw. But, twenty minutes later, as she comes upon his boat and her throat is so dry that it feels torn, she sees him on the deck. Lying on his back, knees bent, bare feet flat, arms crossed over his face to shield them from the glare of the sun.

‘George!’ Cat calls, and can’t keep from smiling, a wide and compulsive smile. ‘Listen!’ She stands by the boat and takes a deep breath – huge, all the way to the bottom of her lungs. They are dry. No catch, no bubble; no fluid to make her cough. George squints at her, confused for a moment, and then he smiles.

‘You’ve got it licked at last, then,’ he says. Cat nods, wipes one hand over her slick brow. Her hair is wet through at the back of her neck.

‘The last of that muck they poured into me, finally gone. Can I come on board?’

‘You can.’ George nods, getting up to take her hands as she wobbles along the gangplank. Standing close to him, so close she can scarce focus her eyes, Cat takes another deep breath. The smell of him, so familiar and enticing. Like the warm wood of the boat; like the dank canal water; like the fresh, pungent foliage all around them. All have sunk their perfume into his skin, mixed and made it wonderful. So wonderful she shuts her eyes, sways on her feet, surrenders herself to the hold of it. ‘You stayed away a good few days. I’d wondered if you would come again after the fright of having the police close in like that,’ George says. His voice is even, the words without emphasis. But when she looks up, his face is pulled apart with emotion, with uncertainty and relief, with love and fear and wounded pride.

‘I didn’t mean to. They’ve been locking me in, George! I couldn’t get word to you… the vicar saw me at The Ploughman. He’s quite lost his mind! He wanted me sent packing, but somebody spoke up for me. But I’ve been locked in my room, each night when work’s done!’

‘They lock you in? That’s not right… they’ve no right to!’

‘I know it. The vicar’s wife takes my part in it. She’s given me a key to unlock the door, so at least I need not spend every night a prisoner, and afraid… but even so I have sworn to her I will not go out at night any more. I don’t like it, but… I have sworn it!’

‘Then, we won’t see each other much more. Not like before. Not if you mean to keep your word,’ George says, frowning.

‘In a way I do, in a way it doesn’t matter any more…’

‘What do you mean? Come – come and sit down. You look sun struck!’ He tows her gently to the shade of the cabin, and they sit on the steps. ‘What do you mean, it matters not?’

‘George,’ Cat says. She looks at him, loves him; puts her hand on the rough skin of his jaw. ‘I can’t stay there any longer. Even though I can unlock my door at night now… I am still a prisoner. I will not tolerate the vicar turning his head away, as though I am some kind of filth! I will not tolerate being told where I must be, and how I must be, every sleeping and waking moment of my life! Even the vicar’s wife… though she thinks to help, still she would have me be a thoughtless drudge. She seeks to govern my thoughts and actions and I will… not… have… it! Not any more!’ she cries, shaking her head and thumping her bony knees with her hands as each word is bitten off. Her skin tingles where she strikes it, and she likes the feeling.

‘So, what are you saying?’ George is still frowning, still unsure of her, of himself.

‘I mean to leave. I will run away from there. There is only one thing I have to do, and it will be done soon. And then I shall disappear. Like a mist in the morning, like a spoken word. I will slip away from there and none of them will be able to stop me, or know where I’ve gone. Let them see then how they control me! How they own me! They do not! But where I go… where I go is up to you, George.’

‘Is that so?’

‘I will run, and when I do I will run straight to you, if you’ll have me. I won’t marry you, George, but I will stay with you, and be true to you. But this is the moment – now I must have your answer. And if not… if not… then I will run all the same, though it would break my heart, George. You would break my heart.’

‘I would not,’ he says, the words wrung tight, tension shaking them. ‘I would not for all the world, and you are mine, wife or no.’ He puts his hand behind her head, pressing their foreheads together so tight it half hurts. ‘So run, Cat. When you may. I’ll be waiting for you.’

Cat hears this promise and she smiles; she smiles and the smile goes right the way through her, like it hasn’t since she was a little girl. George kisses her but still she can’t stop, and the smile becomes a laugh, which passes to George. A laugh of relief, of simple joy.

‘Sweet Jesus, Cat – your kisses are salty today!’ George tells her. Her skin is sticky and pale with it.

‘Oh, I’ve been sweating like a pig since dawn first broke!’ She wipes her hands over her face again; but her hands are every bit as sticky, and grubby to boot.

‘What is this last thing you must do?’

‘I… can’t tell you. I hate to have a secret from you, but while I must return to that house, I must keep it. Once we’re away, I will tell you, I promise.’

‘Is this where the money is coming from?’ His voice is weighted with unease.

‘It is. And I’ve thought long about it, and I can tell you that it breaks no law. Don’t ask me any more about it yet, I beg you,’ she says, squeezing his hand. George raises their knotted fingers, kisses her delicate knuckles, and nods.

‘You would not give yourself to another man, would you, Cat?’ he asks softly. She grips his hand, as hard as she may.

‘Never, George. I swear it.’ Beneath the boat, the water laps with a sound like something softly tearing. In the shade of the trees its surface is black and emerald green, with silver slivers dancing all over it. Cat gazes at it with utter yearning. ‘How I long to see the sea again! I saw it once, when I was a child. So vast and open and… beautiful. I long to see it again. Can we? Though we’re not to wed, perhaps we could take a trip to the seaside, once I am away? What do you say?’

‘We shall go wherever you want to go, Black Cat.’ George smiles.

Cat takes a deep, happy breath. ‘Let’s swim,’ she says.

‘Swim? In the canal?’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s not that clean, love…’

‘It’s got to be cleaner than me right now.’

‘There are crayfish… and pike, and eels…’

‘Bugger the eels!’ Cat laughs. ‘Are you scared of an eel?’

‘No, not scared. Not scared, exactly…’ George hedges.

‘Good. Come on.’ She stands, holds out her hand to him. He takes it, allows himself to be towed to the very edge of the deck. The boat dips drunkenly with their weight. ‘Ready?’

‘Feet first, Cat! It’s not that deep. What about your dress?’

‘Bugger my dress! They can dismiss me for it, and see how I care!’ she shouts; and leaps, holding fast to George’s hand. The water is only four feet deep, and she bumps her feet on the bottom, feels them sink into silt and muck. But the cold of the water is like a locked door opening, like the break of dawn. It rushes over her hot skin, through her hair, around every eyelash and into her ears, booming. Her heart opens up and pours itself out, is washed clean until no anger or fear remains. In that one instant, she is free. For the first time in my life, she thinks, knotting her limbs around George, wet arms sliding like eels to lock around his waist. She tips back her head and lets the sky reach high above her.

The storm begins with what has become reliable regularity. The heat and humidity build for five or six days, reaching a peak like that day’s when the air is so fat and bloated with moisture that it is hard to think, let alone to go about the day. And yet Cat’s tread was as light as a child’s, as she brought up the supper dishes. Whilst they all wilted – even Robin Durrant, whose chatter was for once subdued – she’d all but skipped about on the balls of her feet, a secretive smile playing at the corners of her mouth when she thought herself unobserved. Hester tries to imagine it is because she has the key to her room, but that alone can’t have brought about such a change, can it? She thinks of the girl’s shrieks, her crying and her begging, when her bedroom door was locked. Perhaps it is enough for her to have the key.

Hester stands at the parlour window. She has unlatched the shutters which Cat closed earlier, and folds one back to look out. The lights in the room are all off, and Hester is in her dressing gown. She went to bed at her usual hour, and woke again a short while ago. Alone, of course, with the first rumblings of thunder chasing ghoulish flickers of lightning in from the west. It is almost two in the morning, and no light comes from beneath Albert’s study door. He is not in the drawing room, nor anywhere in the house. Rain hits the window. A fitful, sparse scattering at first, and then a steady downpour. Water rolls down the glass in an unbroken wave, bounces from the garden pathway, makes a sound like a distant sea. Where are you, Bertie? She casts this sad little thought out into the night, with no hope of an answer. She can’t remember a time when she felt more alone. Another flash of lightning drenches the room, and thunder chases right after it, making Hester jump in spite of herself. There is a soft chuckle behind her and she gasps, turning quickly to find Robin Durrant walking towards her. He is wearing the same creased and crumpled trousers as he’s worn all day, his shirt undone. His chest is smooth and flat, the skin taut over the shadowed striations of his ribs. Dark hair blurs a diamond shape in the centre, reaching down towards his stomach. Hester catches her breath and looks hastily away. This is more of any man other than Albert that she has ever seen. He is broader, darker, more solid looking than her husband. He seems more animal; invulnerable.

‘Does the thunder frighten you?’ he asks softly. His friendly, affectionate tone of voice is something she has come to dread.

‘No,’ she whispers, shaking her head. She takes a step backwards but her legs bump the wide window sill, forcing her to grasp it for balance. There is nowhere for her to go. Robin saunters towards her, and stands too close. He seems to tower, though he isn’t that much taller than she. Hester looks at her feet, looks past him across the floor to the open door, and pictures herself walking through it. The scent of him fills her nostrils. Animal again, slightly stale from the heat of the day, but at the same time compelling. She fights the urge to breathe more deeply.

‘Do I scare you?’ he asks; and Hester says nothing. ‘Something must be scaring you, dear Hetty. You’re shaking like a leaf.’

‘Please…’ she manages to say, when words are snarled up and caught in her throat, refusing to be spoken. ‘Please, leave me alone.’

‘Hush now, don’t be that way. I suppose you’re watching out for Albert?’ He looks out at the crashing rain for a moment, then grunts carelessly. ‘I wish I could tell you. I know you blame me for this new-found Christian zeal of his, Hetty, but I swear I never suggested it. At least, I never meant to. His understanding of what I’ve been trying to teach him has gone awry, somewhere.’

‘You’ve driven him half mad!’ Hester’s voice is choked with emotion.

‘Not my doing! Why would I want that? He was proving a most astute pupil, and a useful colleague… at first. But don’t worry. I think he just needs to sleep. Once I’ve gone, he’ll calm down again, I dare say.’

‘You’re leaving?’ Hester gasps, hope surging through her. Robin smiles. He reaches out and takes Hester’s hand, which is quite boneless, and holds it against the skin of his chest. Hester’s heart jolts horribly. The world is so altered that nothing makes sense, and she is helpless to act; a mere passenger in a tiny craft, heading for a maelstrom. His skin is hot and dry. Hester can feel the hairs there, sharp against her fingertips.

‘Soon, soon. Will you be so very glad to see me go?’

‘Yes! Oh, yes!’ Hester says, and she begins to cry, helplessly, not trying to hide it. She does not turn her face away, or reach to wipe her eyes. Robin Durrant takes one look at her stricken face and bursts into delighted laughter.

‘Hester! Dear girl, why do you fret so? Stop that, you’re making yourself ugly. Why do you want me gone so badly? Have I been such an awful house guest?’ He cups her face with one hand and rubs his thumb along the line of her cheekbone.

‘Because… because… Bertie loves you so! Far more than he loves me… than he has ever loved me! With you here I may as well… I may as well not exist!’

‘No, no! You’re quite wrong, Hetty. He does love you. The problem lies elsewhere, with Albert. It’s not love he feels for me, but something else. Something I dare say he does not even know. Or won’t admit to himself.’

Gradually, Hester stops crying. She notices that her hand, though he has released it, still rests on his chest. ‘What is it then? What does he feel?’ she asks.

Robin takes another step closer, so that when he speaks, his lips brush the skin of her forehead, send shivers tumbling down her spine.

‘You’re such innocents! You and the vicar. Hard to believe such innocence can last so long into a marriage. Normally by now the innocence is gone, replaced by satisfaction, by knowledge and experience, and then by familiarity and distaste. Not that I can claim to have experienced marriage myself, but I have seen it enough times, in friends and family.’ He puts his arms around her loosely, but Hester is caged. The smell of him fills every breath she takes, his flesh so close that her skin flares with heat, as though they are already touching. ‘Haven’t you experienced anything like this with him? Not even on your wedding night? Has he never touched you, or kissed you?’ Robin whispers. Hester can’t find her voice to answer him. She shakes her head minutely – though in answer to his question or reaction to his embrace, neither of them can tell. ‘Such a dereliction of duty! And such a terrible waste. He denies you one of life’s great pleasures, Hester; when you were good enough to save yourself for him.’ Robin shakes his head and then presses his lips to her forehead. Hester stands transfixed, entirely trapped between the terrifying excitement and the wrongness of his touch, unable to move or think. She shuts her eyes; Robin kisses her eyelids. ‘Shall I show you what he should have done? Hester? You look so pretty with your hair undone like that, and tears on your cheeks. If you were my wife, I wouldn’t waste a single moment of time with you…’ I am not your wife! Hester cries silently, but still she does not move, for underneath her disgust at this betrayal of Albert, her fear and confusion, she does want to know these things he offers to show her. She is desperate to know. The room is dark, protective. It makes her invisible, makes her disappear.

When he kisses her mouth she sags against him, her legs tingling and weak. She cannot breathe. All strength seeps from her, and though she braces her arms against him, as if to fend him off, her mouth kisses him back, in spite of herself. When he breaks away he is smiling slightly. Had it been his normal smile, she might have acted differently. Had it been a smile of triumph or satisfaction, or a mocking smile, she might have found the resolve to run from him. But it is a soft and tender smile; one of admiration and desire, one that she has so longed to see, albeit on another man’s face. The storm lights his face again, gives every inch of him an unearthly glow, so bright that Hester flinches. He is beautiful, it is true. She does not open her eyes again, but lets herself be touched by him, be kissed and held by him. With every movement of his hands and mouth she feels her own rising desire – a longing like an ache, an unbearable ache right at the core of her. Robin opens her robe and pushes her back onto the window sill. The pain as he reaches for this ache makes her shudder and clench her teeth together, but it is wonderful too. A thousand fiery sparks whirl behind her eyes, shoot her thoughts to pieces, set light to every inch of her and leave her to burn. For that short while, she is not herself. She does not even exist.

When she opens her eyes Robin Durrant is pulling up his trousers, buttoning the fly, catching his breath. There is sweat gleaming on his chest now, and on his brow. Hester is on her feet again, still by the window, her heart slowing down, and a cold touch of horror to make her sick just beginning to grow. Between her thighs she is stinging, burning, and something begins to trickle. She touches her fingers to it, finds smears of blood amidst something else, some other stuff she does not know. Robin looks up at her as he tucks his shirt in roughly.

‘Go to bed, Hetty. Albert will have to take care of himself tonight,’ he says, impatiently. Hester swallows. Her throat is parched, ragged. Slowly, with limbs that do not wish to obey her, she pulls her dressing gown closed, and fumbles for the belt. Staring at him all the while, her eyes wide in her face, mind racing now. Robin sees this expression of hers – of incomprehension, of shock. He rolls his eyes a little, scornfully, and then comes to her, puts his hand to her face again. ‘It’s all right, Hester. Nobody need ever know. It’s quite natural – it’s not a crime, you know! Go to bed and sleep. I shan’t ever tell a soul, I swear.’ He speaks in a bored tone, as if to a child. That is all she is to him, Hester sees. A weakling, a fool to be used to his own ends. Now Hester snatches her face away from him. Now she can move, on numb legs, clumsy and slow. But she can’t lay all the blame on him, she knows. She walks from the room, eyes fixed and flat like a somnambulist’s. She takes the stairs steadily, quietly, and the burden of her guilt grows heavier with every step.